In an article published in the Irish Times on April 8th, the paper's former foreign correspondent Patrick Smith claimed that the concept of neutrality was obsolete for Ireland. In a response published on April 14th John Maguire outlines why that is not the case. We reprint his excellent letter in full here.

Patrick Smyth declares Irish neutrality obsolete (Opinion 8th April 2017), a report which manages to be simultaneously old and false news. Despite frequent P45s and applications of the last rites, neutrality just won't bow out. Maybe one reason is that it is endorsed by 78% of Irish people (RedC, 2013).

In February of this year Shannonwatch lodged a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for correspondence and records relating to a sample 12 US military contracted flights that landed at Shannon or flew through Irish airspace in October 2016. The flights were classified as civilian rather than military but they had US military charter call signs, and were operated by airlines that have "indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity" contracts to provide international airlift services to the US military (a full list of companies with contracts to provide international airlift services to the US military is available here). Four of the flights in the FOI request were Atlas Air flights; four were by MN Airlines LLC, operating as Sun Country Airlines; two were operated by Omni Air International; one by National Air Cargo; and one was a UPS Airlines flight.

A list of all 12 flights is provided at the end of this article.

In order to carry guns and/or ammunition these flights would have to seek and be granted an exemption under the Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Order. This is, in effect, a request to take munitions of war through Irish territory.

In answer to a parliamentary question from Clare Daly TD, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charlie Flanagan has claimed that arrangements for the regulation of activity by foreign military aircraft at Irish airports and in Irish airspace are kept under ongoing review. There is little evidence of any review of the daily overflights and landings by the US military. But in light of the current ramping up of military aggression around the world by the US, including the illegal and counterproductive air strikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, it is now time for an urgent review of our support for their military aggression.

A US warship the USS Donald Cook has arrived in Cobh harbour today Tuesday 21st March. It is likely that it will be refuelled while in Cobh, but It is no more welcome in an Irish port, than the US war planes that are being refuelled at Shannon airport on a daily basis.

The USS Donald Cook is a destroyer, equipped with the following weapons (and probably much more besides).

Colm Roddy was "up for mention" at Ennis District Court today as a result of efforts by himself and Dave Donnellan to search two US military aircraft at Shannon Airport almost one year ago. Judge Durcan, who last November had struck out the charges against Colm Roddy had initially forgotten his previous dismissal of these charges, and then when he remembered, sought more information from the prosecution about the DPP's decision to overturn Judge Durcan's ruling in November. Inspector Kennedy was not in court and the prosecuting inspector knww nothing of te case, so the matter was adjourned once again to Wed 26th April.

Enda Kenny handed over our neutrality and Shannon Airport to Obama. Time to take them back when he meets Trump.

On Friday, St Patrick's Day, Taoiseach Enda Kenny will pay homage to the man he called racist last year, Donald Trump.

When they meet there will be no mention of our neutrality, or the millions of mwn, women and children we have helped Trump's predecessors to kill in the Middle East.

No mention of the continued use of Shannon to kill and main.

No mention of the recent revelation that the US used depleted uranium in Syria in 2015.

Or the expected $60bn Trump will spend on military interference in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries in the next year. Trump is increasing the military budget as a whole to close to $1trillion.

There will be no mention of Trump's determination to ramp up the nuclear arms race.